Kingdom Violence (4)

Compare your efforts toward the good things of heaven with your efforts toward the things of the world. If there is a hope of being preferred, the doors of great men are sure to suffer violence from those seeking to get ahead. The courts of justice suffer violence from those demanding their rights in earthly things. If a man could but observe the courses of men in the city, he would see one violent for his pleasures, running to the house of the harlot ‘as a fool to the stocks' (Prov 7:22); another to the exchange, to increase his estate; another to the place of justice, to undermine his neighbour or to get his own right. These places suffer violence. But what violence does the poor gospel endure? Alas! it is slighted; and men will regard it when they can spare the time. It is not regarded according to its worth and value. If ever we look to receive good from the gospel, our dispositions must be violent, in some proportion answerable to the excellency of it.
We may justly turn the complaint on ourselves, that while we spend our strength in violence about the fallen and ordinary things of this life, the kingdom of heaven offers violence to us, and yet we will have none of it. How God beseeches us in the ministry! 'We beseech you to be reconciled' (2 Cor. 5:20); and 'Why will ye die, O house of Israel?' (Ezek. 18:31). God comes and offers these appeals to us, and yet we refuse them. We are so far from offering violence to the gospel and to grace, that God offers violence to us, as if we should do him a favour to receive the gospel and do good to our own souls; and yet the vile and proud hearts of men will not regard and receive these heavenly things. How it will justify God's sentence on the day of judgment, when he will declare that there was a presenting of such things to you, and instead of violence in seeking them, you slighted and neglected them.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Victorious Violence, Works, vol. 6, pp. 302-03
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